Building fee cut sought in Stockton

Friday

Dec 7, 2012 at 12:01 AM

Housing construction in Stockton may remain nearly nonexistent over the next three years, experts say, even as they predict building activity will fully recover in other San Joaquin County communities.

Reed Fujii

Housing construction in Stockton may remain nearly nonexistent over the next three years, experts say, even as they predict building activity will fully recover in other San Joaquin County communities.

And while a housing industry executive calls for cuts in Stockton's building fees to stimulate residential building, city officials said a full review of the issue, including how fees could be used to reshape the city, will take place this spring.

John Beckman, executive officer of the Building Industry Association of the Delta, expects fewer than 200 homes a year to be built in Stockton over the next three years, even as the pace of construction rapidly recovers in neighboring cities.

"Stockton's going to get eclipsed," he said.

Beckman, based on conversations with home developers his organization represents, said construction activity will rebound, instead, primarily in Manteca and Lathrop, with strong activity also in Mountain House.

Jeffrey Michael, director of the Business Forecasting Center at University of the Pacific, expects San Joaquin County home construction to begin to rev up next year, forecasting more than 1,900 home and apartment starts, up from 1,100 this year. Housing activity will rise sharply again in 2014 to nearly 2,700 units and 3,600 homes and apartments by 2015, he forecast.

But he agrees that most of that growth will come outside Stockton.

"You're going to see most of that growth down in Mountain House and Manteca, and River Islands (in Lathrop is) coming on line," Michael said. "And maybe Lodi up a little bit from where it's been."

Beckman blames Stockton's high building fee structure for discouraging home building.

While city officials propose the City Council on Tuesday consider extending building fee reductions, first imposed in 2009, through 2013, Beckman wants them to go further.

He said Lodi recently slashed its building fees to about $15,000 per home. Manteca fees run $19,000 to $20,000, while Stockton's charges about $35,000 per house.

"The picture is Stockton is grossly overcharging for their fees if you compare them city by city to the other cities," Beckman said.

But what works for Lodi or Manteca may not work for Stockton, said Steve Chase, Stockton's community development director

"We have prevailing problems, as it relates to growth, of where growth occurs and how growth is paid for across the region," he said. "Each community decides its own fate."

His department is working on an analysis of Stockton building fees, including how they may be applied to reshape the city.

For example, Chase said, "If the policy target for this community is for infill development in the downtown, over the selection of development outside, on the periphery of the community, than one mechanism is to adjust our fees to induce development in the downtown."

But the results of that study, and any policy changes that come out of it, will have to go through a longer process, including a review by the city's Development Oversight Commission, of which Beckman is the chairman, and the City Council.

"It really is a community conversation: where and how we grow and who pays for it," Chase said.